


as much of noon as i could take

by susiecarter



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DC Extended Universe, Justice League (2017)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Extra Treat, Guilt, M/M, Time Travel, Timeline Shenanigans, Translation Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 18:49:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21202367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: It might work.Bruce looks at the mother box—watches it, though it isn't doing anything except sitting there in front of him, gleaming, the deceptively simple shape of a cube. It's only the texture, the ridges and edges and shifting interlocking patterns that cross the surface, that hint at what it truly is. What it's capable of.(Or: Mid-JL, Bruce has convinced everyone to try raising Superman from the dead; but what if he could make sure it had never been necessary in the first place? Surely that's the superior option, and there's nothing to stop him from trying. Except maybe Clark.)





	as much of noon as i could take

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chantefable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chantefable/gifts).
  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [凡我能承受的白日 by SusieCarter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25940605) by [lucelucid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucelucid/pseuds/lucelucid)

> Your time travel freeform was too good to pass up! :D I just hope you like this, chantefable, and happy Tropefest. ♥
> 
> This is a little handwavy about the JL timeline, but is positioned between the Big Argument about reviving Clark and the actual resurrection attempt. (There appears to be some natural light coming from outside during the argument; Barry and Victor dig up Clark's body at night; the resurrection takes place during daylight again.) Title adapted from "[Before I got my eye put out—](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52135/before-i-got-my-eye-put-out-336)" by Emily Dickinson, because when have I ever successfully resisted the urge to title things with Dickinson lines? Never, that's when.

It might work.

Bruce looks at the mother box—watches it, though it isn't doing anything except sitting there in front of him, gleaming, the deceptively simple shape of a cube. It's only the texture, the ridges and edges and shifting interlocking patterns that cross the surface, that hint at what it truly is. What it's capable of.

Not that Bruce has any way to meaningfully quantify what it's capable of. _They are power_, Diana had told him, and as far as he can determine, she isn't wrong. Every reading he's taken, every test he's run, has only served to confirm that he understands nothing whatsoever about the object in front of him, and that whatever it is, however it works, the scale on which it operates is off the charts.

And off the charts in both directions, as best he can tell. Diana had told him stories of mother boxes rearranging planets, remaking them—and that they should be capable of operating with that kind of scope, while at the same time performing a _function_ that seems to speak to an ability to manipulate or alter matter on a molecular and even atomic level—

Both the immense and the minuscule are within the box's grasp; both the awe-inspiringly grandiose, and the impossibly delicate.

So—it might work.

Bruce bites the inside of his cheek. As if that's enough. As if he can afford to settle for gambling on this.

He has to do his best. This has to be as close to a sure thing as it's possible to get. He owes Superman at least that much.

Superman, and the world—because without Superman, their odds of stopping this, of handling the kind of threat they're facing right now, become markedly worse.

Victor ran the numbers. And Bruce trusts him not to have lied about them. But "a high probability" isn't certainty. And Victor knows it, or he wouldn't have agreed to let Bruce examine the box like this overnight.

The first step was to convince them all it needed to be done. The second—

The second is to convince himself. Of any dozen things and more: that he won't somehow cause Superman greater harm than he already did by standing by and watching him die; that this will work, one-and-done, as painless as ever a resurrection from death could be for an undecayed alien corpse.

That he can fix this. That there are some mistakes that can be unmade.

He closes his eyes. Christ, he _wants_ to believe that. He wants it more than anything.

But is this the best way to do it? He isn't stupid. Superman will be angry; Diana wasn't wrong about that, either. Superman will be angry, and might not even want to help them, with Bruce involved—but if he'd die to save the world, surely working with Bruce temporarily won't prove too high a price to pay to save it again. Or—

Bruce gives in to impulse, squeezes his eyes shut tighter. He should have offered to stay away. To let Diana, Victor, Barry, do it without him. If it's possible, then it's possible because of the box, and they'll be as capable of pulling it off whether Bruce is there to see it or not.

But he couldn't. He can't. Even now, every single shred of him rebels at the idea of—of not _being_ there, of missing it. Of Superman coming back to life, and Bruce not knowing until it's already over, not standing right there bearing witness.

He's intellectually aware that it was Doomsday who killed Superman, that if anything he'd aided Superman by having created a weapon he was able to use to stop Doomsday when nothing else had worked. But nevertheless, of all the unbearable and yet inarguable assessments, it _feels_ like his responsibility. If he hadn't wasted so much time trying to kill Superman himself, if he'd bothered to work out what Luthor was planning—he could have set up all those traps and weapons and pointed them at his actual goddamn enemy. He could have planned for the battle he'd needed to win, instead of the one he'd forced into being out of nothing but thin air and obsession, and perhaps it would never even have been necessary for Superman to—to do what he'd done.

And he wants Superman to know that he understands that. He wants to prove that he does: that he's willing to face Superman, to accept whatever consequences Superman intends to mete out; that he's not going to hide or run away, not going to put the burden on Superman to track him down and confront him.

At the port—there hadn't been time for it, not then. Superman could have killed him with only the barest exertion, once the spear was out of range, but hadn't done it.

(Bruce had interpreted it as a tactical advantage. Superman could have killed him ten times over, during that fight, once Bruce's first handful of countermeasures had proven inadequate. Just by hitting him a fraction harder, crushing the metal helmet of his suit flat with his head inside it. That he hadn't—

That he hadn't had felt like proof, validation and strategic flaw in one. So Superman was willing to toy with him, then. Willing to use him as a punching bag, willing to drag it out with sheer spiteful violence. Willing to give Bruce the opportunity to test additional contingencies. Even after the first round of kryptonite, even once it had worn off, and surely aware that Bruce probably had more, Superman _still_ hadn't ended it, hadn't dealt him the single killing blow he was more than capable of.

Bruce had thought it was only arrogance, prideful stubbornness. Stupidity, ungovernable petty impulse, relentless hostility. He hadn't known any better. He hadn't understood—)

Bruce swallows, and rubs a thumb across his forehead, and makes himself look at the box.

It might work. It _should_ work. If there's any justice in the universe at all—

Except of course there isn't. There never has been, except that which is brought into being by those who care enough to believe that there should be.

He reaches out, and touches the box: runs his fingertips along one edge. There's no reason to think it isn't safe to; Victor touched it, brought it here, told him it was currently dormant, and all evidence to date supports that assessment. It had sat quietly in Dr. Stone's lab without building anyone any limbs at all, until it had been called upon. It needs to be activated, woken, _used_—it doesn't just deploy itself.

But it feels warm beneath his hand. It feels alive.

And there are other options. Aren't there? Options that would leave far less of this to chance; options that would render any question of whether Superman's body were truly as well-preserved as Bruce hoped, whether the box could do what he thought it could, whether it _would_ do it, entirely academic.

He wouldn't even need to argue about it with anyone, he thinks distantly. He could just—try. If he failed, other options would remain. And if he succeeded, then there would be no grounds on which to object, and no one who'd be aware that there was anything to object to.

Not that he has any real idea where to start. Whether it's possible at all, or how to do it. It might be as simple as communicating his intentions to the box. It might be as simple as _asking_ it to—but how to ask, how to be sure it grasps what he wants from it, how it would even undertake the task if it did ...

Just as much guesswork, he supposes, wry. Perhaps he's saving himself no uncertainty at all. Perhaps it's just that he's selfish enough for the idea to have an appeal it hasn't earned, purely by virtue of its unilaterality—that it would allow him to redress his own error so directly.

He thinks about it for a moment too long, as it turns out.

A moment too long—or just long enough.

The box moves under his hand, shifts. Splits, a piece abruptly upthrust, the corners of a much smaller cube pressing discernibly into Bruce's palm. He closes his hand around it, automatic and unthinking, as it tumbles free; and the box has come alight, but it's only a soft coruscating glow, spilling from its lines and edges, from the patterns along its surface. It doesn't look the way it looked in the video from Dr. Stone's lab, flaring bright and opening up, coming apart. It doesn't look _activated_, as such. But it's definitely doing something, even if that something requires only a fraction of the power it contains.

And then—it's gone. Everything is gone, the Cave, the lab, the examination table Bruce had been standing in front of. He has an instant to react to the absence of the floor beneath his feet, an instant to perceive himself as unmoored and falling freely—he tenses, mindless, and feels that loose cube of mother box jab dully into his hand—

And then the world remakes itself around him, and he's standing on dark wet pavement, crisp evening air, trying and failing to catch his breath as he stares at the dim shapes of waterfront warehouses blocked out against the sky.

He tells himself he can't be certain where he is—or _when_ he is, for that matter.

But he is anyway. He knows this place. He knows this day.

He makes himself pretend otherwise. He's not dressed the right way to go unnoticed, wandering around the docks like this: dress shirt, slacks, the remains of Bruce Wayne's business attire after he'd absently shed jacket and tie to work on the mother box in the lab. But he could perhaps manage to pass himself off as—well, himself; here to assess the facilities of a new distributor or shipping company with which he's considering a contract, that sort of thing.

So he doesn't bother to look for cover, and he doesn't try to hide. He puts his hands in his pockets, the mother box's mini-cube still closed tightly within one of them, and he glances idly one way, and then the other, and then he starts to walk. Steady, even pace, as though he knows where he's going. As though he has the right to be here, and it would be foolish to think otherwise.

There are men working here and there, though none of them particularly close to the warehouse through which Luthor's shipment will come—may come, _if_ Bruce is right—

Regardless: listening to them shout to each other, and examining a few stray shipping labels, results in evidence enough to suggest that Bruce's initial mindless gut impression may have been correct.

He draws a long slow breath, lets it out, and keeps going: describes a winding path between and around a few warehouses, past stacks of crates and pallets and shipping containers, until he reaches—the place where it happened.

Where it will happen.

He glances up at the sky, biting the inside of his cheek. Only just darkening to the beginnings of evening. Hours yet.

But—is that enough time? Could there ever be enough time? What's the best approach? He doesn't want to prevent himself from obtaining the kryptonite, nor creating the spear; they _will_ need it, in the end. And yet that leaves him with the Herculean task of determining how he might ever plausibly be able to convince himself to point that particular weapon in another direction.

It should be made easier by the fact that he's so tautologically and intimately familiar with every angle and facet of his own mindset. It should give him the advantage.

But he stares unseeingly at the concrete beneath his feet, and swallows, and there's a bitter sour taste caught in his throat.

God. It'll never work.

But Superman—

Bruce presses a thumb to the bridge of his nose. Does that have any greater likelihood of success? The fundraiser at Luthor's has already happened. He hadn't known then who it was he'd been looking at, whose face he'd smiled into while he'd bitten out _freaks dressed like clowns_, but he does now. And Superman must have guessed, must have heard Alfred speaking to Bruce through the earpiece without the least difficulty. He must at least have had his suspicions, and he could have watched Bruce infiltrate Luthor's servers right through the floor.

His opinion of Bruce must already be in the basement. But—

Even much later, the night it ended, he'd tried to talk. He'd wanted to, until Bruce had hit him with lasers, projectiles, sonic destabilizers, and then done his level best to beat him into the ground.

Surely there's a chance. Bitter irony, that Bruce hadn't been able to believe in that chance at the time but is desperately grasping after it now.

He huffs out half a laugh through his nose, rubs his hand across his face, and looks up.

And someone's there.

He goes still. His heart kicks sharply in his chest. He can't be this lucky. He _can't_ be. And yet—

It's possible, isn't it? That Superman should have come into possession of a handful of the facts himself; that he'd been at Luthor's fundraiser for a reason. If he knew something was coming in, something Luthor wanted very badly, and that Luthor was interested in the ship, in Kryptonians—why _wouldn't_ he have done his due diligence, and come to take a look around?

Maybe the box sent Bruce to this place at this time for a better reason than he'd realized.

He takes a step forward, swallowing.

He's been scrupulously careful, in his own mind, not to presume more than he's earned. Superman is Superman; Bruce hadn't cared about or bothered to attempt to understand Clark Kent. Hadn't _known_ Clark Kent, not in any way that counted, and had no right to pretend as though he had.

But that, unmistakably, is who's in front of him right now. Just crossing the open space between one warehouse and a tower of shipping containers, and—he'll be able to tell Bruce is here, Bruce thinks distantly, but only if he's trying to, only if he's listening for it—

And even as he thinks it, Kent's head comes up, and he locks eyes instantly and unmistakably with Bruce.

He looks a little startled. Stops short, and wets his lips. And he must—he must be thinking almost the same thing Bruce is, that he's seeing Bruce Wayne here because of Batman's evident interest in Luthor, that Bruce is scoping out the area in advance of the shipment's arrival.

But he doesn't know they'll meet, later.

He doesn't know how this ends.

"Mr. Wayne," Kent says, voice raised, coming nearer. He slows, but comes closer than Bruce is anticipating; then again, he knows Bruce is Batman, but has no reason to think Bruce knows who _he_ is. He's not anticipating an attack, he's got no reason to be careful.

He pauses for a moment, silence stretching, wetting his lips again.

"Fancy meeting you here," he adds at last, and his tone is bland, a little wry. He's wearing plaid, sleeves rolled up, a dark solid-colored tie that's the barest fraction askew. His hair curls—but then Superman's did too, Bruce remembers, when it got wet. His eyes are sharp, blue and intent behind his glasses.

And he's—alive.

"Indeed," Bruce makes himself say, and the effort it takes to sound nothing more than vaguely bored is incalculable. His pulse has settled, at least; for the best, since Kent can undoubtedly hear it. "Chasing a new story, Mr. Kent?"

"Just following up on a potential lead," Kent agrees evenly. "And I suppose you're here on—business."

"Naturally."

And perhaps this is exactly the chance he needs. Kent thinks Bruce doesn't know he's Superman, but right now, he's wrong.

Explanations won't be enough. Even if he were to somehow find himself capable of picking himself apart for this Clark Kent, cutting himself neatly open and letting Kent get a nice long look at the bleeding wounded heart of him, it wouldn't make any sense to Kent. His behavior before and after won't be consonant with an earnest discussion of his emotional state and decision-making process that will allow Kent to grasp what he's up against. Even if he could make himself understood to Kent, could convince Kent that the Bruce Wayne with which Kent is familiar is merely in the process of committing an egregious error—he can't take the risk that further confrontations will change Kent's mind again, that Kent will write this interaction off as the anomaly it is.

He has to do this the way he would have done it then. Has to say what he needs to say in a way that will make Kent believe he's talking to the Bruce Wayne he met at Luthor's.

Bruce leans in, abrupt, uncomfortably close. It's more desperation than it is anger or barely-contained fear that's rendering his voice so low and harsh. But Kent's powers don't include telepathy, empathy; it'll pass muster. "Incredible," he bites out. Kent's eyes are wide. "You really believe you've got me fooled, don't you?"

"I—Mr. Wayne, I don't—"

"You can't hide from me," Bruce tells him, soft, icy. "I know it's you. I know what you are."

Kent swallows—and then his chin comes up, his jaw firming. "I'm not sure you do," he says at last, and it comes out oddly quiet, even gentle.

Christ. He isn't wrong.

But Bruce can't tell him that.

He forces his face into a sneer instead, looks Kent up and down with hard eyes. "For some reason," he murmurs, Bruce Wayne's bland tones, "I don't find myself inclined to take your word for it."

And Kent—flinches, just a little, swallowing again, throat moving convulsively.

"And I'm not going to let you get away with it." Bruce leans in closer still, fists his hand in the line of buttons down Kent's shirtfront. "Do you understand? I'm not going to back down. I'm going to do whatever it takes to stop you. There's no other way for this to end. If I get the chance, I'm going to kill you, and I'm not going to hesitate."

Because it's true, for this Bruce. For the Bruce he used to be. It's true. He'd had every intention of it, and he'd been committed to it. He'd told himself it wouldn't matter what the alien tried, once Bruce had him helpless—if he begged, if he pleaded, if he cried. Whatever manipulation or distraction he might attempt, nothing could be allowed to come of it. He _had_ to be stopped.

That he'd happened to speak the one name Bruce could never have predicted hearing off his tongue—that he'd happened to tug the lone cord knotted so deeply within Bruce that Bruce couldn't hope to control his own reaction to it—

Luck. In a strange twisted way, Bruce owed Luthor his gratitude for choosing Martha Kent as the leverage he'd brought to bear against Superman. Because there was nothing else he could imagine—not Superman's desperation, or pain; not the most transcendently well-reasoned argument; not fear, not self-disgust, not mercy—that could have stayed his hand in that moment.

And—this is the best way. Isn't it? To end that fight quickly instead of dragging it out. To give Superman time to discover the kryptonite vapor shells, the spear waiting where Bruce had positioned it; to give Superman time to save Martha himself. Or—or even time enough to return to Luthor, to catch him in the ship before he's able to create Doomsday at all.

"I'm not going to hesitate," Bruce repeats. "And you can't either."

Kent stares at him, brow drawing down. He doesn't look angry. He looks baffled, taken aback, and then—wildly unhappy, sudden but unmistakable. "What? _No_," he says, reaching up, gripping Bruce's wrist, thumb just brushing Bruce's knuckles where they're closed around his goddamn buttons tight enough to ache. "No, jesus, Bruce. That's not going to happen."

Of all the times to be stubborn, Bruce thinks distantly.

And then Kent bites his lip, and something in his face changes. A warning, and Bruce doesn't miss it, and yet it couldn't possibly have prepared him for what Kent says next.

"That's not how it happens."

Bruce goes utterly still.

"That's not how it happens," Kent says again, hurried, hushed, painfully earnest. "Bruce—Mr. Wayne—please, you have to listen to me. I know you have no reason to believe this. You—" He stops, and huffs out a grimly amused little breath through his nose. "You probably already think this is a trick. And that's okay, that's fine. It doesn't matter. You go ahead and do what you need to do. I just want you to remember this, after: it's all right. Okay? It's all right. I understand, and I don't blame you, and everything's going to be all right."

The box, Bruce thinks, dimly. Maybe it didn't send him anywhere. Maybe it made this for him, that's all—responding to his thoughts, but in an entirely different way than he'd expected. It knew what he wanted to try to do, what he wanted to believe might be possible; and at the same time it knew what he wanted most to hear Kent say to him—

"It's not," he hears himself say. "It's not all right. You're dead."

Kent's eyes go wide. "You—wait," he says, and then, incomprehensible, inane, "It _is_ you."

"Mr. Kent—"

"I thought it was the you from here. I mean—" Kent stops, and blows out a wry breath. "Jesus, I'm screwing this up. You came from somewhere else, didn't you? You're about to try to bring me back, but you aren't sure it's going to work, and you thought you might as well do it another way. Be—more efficient. Right?"

Bruce swallows, once and then again.

No. No. He still doesn't know whether this is even real at all. It can't be considered proof of anything. That this version of Kent is talking as though—as though what's happening to Bruce right now has already happened, as though _he's_ from Bruce's own future—

That doesn't mean it's true. That doesn't mean he can afford to believe it.

But he can feel the ache anyway, the tight straining pull of it in his chest, painful and unfamiliar.

Hope.

"You don't have to," Kent is saying. "The box is enough. It _is_ going to work, Bruce."

Bruce breathes out, long and unsteady, and doesn't answer. His hand is still clenched in the front of Kent's shirt, with Kent's own closed warm and strong over it, fingers curling around his wrist, thumb spread across the back of it.

Alive. In the _future_, alive.

"Or I'm hallucinating," he says aloud.

And Kent, astoundingly, grins at him. "Sure," he agrees easily. "Maybe you're asleep in the Cave with your head on the mother box, maybe none of us were ever alive in the first place, maybe your green isn't my green."

"Kent—"

"You told me to say something about the pointlessness of discounting your subjective experience when that can't change the fact that you're experiencing it," Kent clarifies, still smiling lopsidedly. "But I thought that would probably make me sound even more like I was all in your head."

Bruce bites the inside of his cheek, trying frantically to steady himself. "I told you," he repeats, and it comes out reasonably level.

And Kent's face softens, immediate and unmistakable, as if he understands exactly what Bruce is asking by it. "Yes," he says. "You did. The box works, Bruce. I couldn't have come back here from anywhere where you'd talk to me about anything if it didn't."

On the one hand: it's worth considering taking his own advice. Yes, it's possible none of this is happening; but as long as he still _perceives_ it to be happening, it makes sense to proceed as though it is. And if it is—he can hardly argue with Kent's physical presence in front of him, with a Kent who does indeed appear to be aware of events he couldn't be aware of if he had remained deceased without interruption.

On the other hand, why should that stop him? Even if the box _does_ work the way it's intended to, wouldn't it still be preferable for Kent to never have died at all? Isn't it still worthwhile to prevent him from suffering that fate?

It feels that way. Undeniable, unbearable—because it should never have happened in the first place, Bruce had known that even as he was standing there watching it. Because a man who was willing to die to save the world was a man who could never deserve to have to.

"Bruce, come on," Kent says quietly. "You know this is at least as unpredictable as anything you could do to me with that box. You know there's no way to control for the outcome, no way you could be sure you'd changed the right things."

Bruce closes his eyes.

"And even if you did—what happens to you? _This_ you. You aren't trying to create a closed loop here. You're trying to alter the future. You have no idea what a paradox like that might do."

"It might not be a paradox," Bruce makes himself say. "If the timeline splits—"

"—then your Clark still died anyway," Kent says, gentle, "and you still have to go back there and figure out how to resurrect him. And if there's no split, if it works, if somehow this particular individual universe doesn't care that once I live there's never a you who felt the need to come back here and save me—then what? You're just _erased_?"

Bruce laughs.

It's foolish to do it, but he can't help it. As if the promise of his non-existence—the non-existence of the Bruce whose misjudgment caused all this to come to pass—should be treated as a disincentive, and not simple justice. Duly earned punishment for his own arrogance and paranoia, his murderous intentions and his utter unwillingness to consider any other option.

He looks at Kent, who's frowning back at him, surprised and uncertain. "That's a point in favor," he murmurs, "don't you think?"

Kent stares at him for a long moment, wordless. "Jesus, Bruce," he says at last, barely more than a whisper, and then he's—he moves, lifts his free hand to Bruce's shoulder, slides it to the nape of Bruce's neck; moves closer still, chest pressed to Bruce's braced knuckles where they're still fisted in his shirt, and leans their temples together. It's sudden, startling, to be so thoroughly surrounded by him, to be touched and touching in so many different ways. And the gesture itself is unexpected, coming from a man Bruce hardly knows at all.

But then—

But then perhaps, Bruce dares to think, for this version of Kent it's the opposite: strange to refrain, strange to hold himself back from someone he hasn't had to do that with in a long time.

It's possible. Isn't it?

"You didn't even _like_ me then," Kent says, into his ear.

"I—didn't not," Bruce rebuts, and for some reason that makes Kent laugh.

He eases back far enough to look Bruce in the eye, then, and sobers, gaze intent. "I knew you regretted it," he says. "I knew you wanted me back, I knew you'd argued for it. But I—I don't know." He bites his lip, and shakes his head. "I didn't think it _hurt_ you," he blurts at last. "I didn't think you—you never told me that you—"

And of all that's unbelievable about this entire scenario, Bruce observes distantly, he means it. He resides in a future where he believes it plausible that Bruce _would_ have told him such a thing.

"What you did mattered to me," he says aloud. It isn't enough to explain, but then words never will be: how utterly that moment had reoriented him; the sensation of foundations that had sunk gradually into mire re-exposed, still there after all. "I'd just proven to you unmistakably exactly how flawed it was possible for humanity to be—how reactionary, how violent, how thoroughly lacking in empathy. How selfish."

"You were trying to keep people safe—"

"There were other ways," Bruce bites out. "I didn't want to try them. And the only thing that stopped me from killing you was that you said something to me that seemed to be about _me_." He breathes out, sharp, frustrated with himself just remembering it. Christ. "And then you—"

His throat closes. He can't get it out.

But he doesn't have to. As if Kent's unaware of how that sentence ends, of what exactly it was he'd done.

Kent's hand is still curling around his neck, the side of his throat, Kent's thumb just brushing the hinge of his jaw. And Kent's looking at him, quiet and serious, blue eyes steady behind those goddamn glasses.

"Yeah," he agrees, "I did. It mattered to me, too. And—look, Bruce, I'm not trying to tell you I want to be dead, okay? But I'm all right. It happened. It hurt and then it was over, and for me—it was the blink of an eye, and then you brought me back again. I wasn't suffering down there. I wasn't angry, I wasn't sad, I wasn't in pain. I was just—dead."

Bruce closes his eyes. He hadn't thought about it, not in so many words. But he supposes it is, in part, that he'd—that he'd had that last blurring glimpse of Superman stamped on the backs of his eyelids, for a while. All that green light, and Doomsday's roar, and the terrible sickening jolt of the moment when he'd realized what he was seeing, that the spike of Doomsday's regrown limb had gone _through_. That that was Superman's last memory, that he could make no new ones, and somehow it felt intuitively true that therefore he must still be experiencing it, trapped within it, endless. That bringing him back wouldn't just restore him to life, but would free him.

"And it's better now," Kent is saying, "it's great. The League, everything. I'm not saying I _had_ to die for the League to form—who knows. But you brought them together, you worked together to save me, and when you needed to fight, you could. That's a good thing, Bruce. Don't undo it."

His thumb moves: skims the line of Bruce's jaw, warm and gentle and startling. Bruce can't help but look at him, and his face is gentle, too, his eyes.

"There are so many good things you haven't gotten to see or do yet. And right now I can promise you that you will, but that only stays true if you don't change anything. It's—" He pauses, hesitating, and Bruce notices with distant bewilderment that a flush is climbing his throat. "We're friends," he says after a moment, almost shy. "We—I think that we could even—" He clears his throat, glances away and then back. "I mean, you've never said anything."

"That's not diagnostic," Bruce says blankly, automatic.

And Kent grins at him, wide, bright. Fond.

Impossible. Surely, in any future—impossible.

"I kind of hoped not," Kent admits. "I just want you to understand: it's good, Bruce. I meant it. Everything's all right. I _like_ it this way. And you know all kinds of things could change, even if you don't intend it. If you don't want to take my life away from me—then don't. Please."

Bruce jerks away from the word like it's a slap. Once, he wouldn't have paid it the least attention, if Superman had begged him; but now it's the last thing he wants.

And Kent feels it happen, because of course he does, and holds on—moves both hands, cups Bruce's face in them. "Sorry," he says quickly, "sorry. I didn't mean—I know how much you want to save me. I'm _glad_ you do. And you will," he adds, more softly. "A thousand times over, you will. But not like this."

The touch of his mouth should not, objectively, be a surprise. The way he's closed the distance between them at every opportunity, the way he said _we're friends_ and then _we could even—_ and the heat that had risen to his face when he did. His hands on Bruce's face, tentative, warm.

But Bruce is staggered anyway, helplessly uncomprehending, thoroughly bewildered. Yes, they'd fought. With each other, and then side-by-side. Yes, he'd been aware of Superman's physical presence, relentlessly conscious of it, alight with it—of course he had. Yes, he had, within the span of a single searing and emotionally profound instant, felt all his roiling uncertainty and discomfort transmute themselves into understanding, excruciatingly powerful regret, even an abstract and intense admiration.

He wants to correct his mistakes. He wants it desperately. But he never knew Superman, not really, and he never knew Kent, either. Not well enough to want him this way.

Except now Kent's kissing him, and suddenly he's inescapably aware that it's—not out of the question that he could.

"Trust me," Kent murmurs against Bruce's cheek, when it's over. "Please, Bruce. Trust me."

Bruce bites down on the end of his tongue, and doesn't answer. There are a thousand reasons not to trust anything about this scenario at all. Even if this is actually happening—even if he _is_ currently standing in the place where, an hour or two from now, the Batmobile will spin out, where Bruce will be struck by the impact of a tall caped figure on so many more levels than the physical and will feel his heart pound—that doesn't mean this is really Kent. An imposter, traveling here to convince Bruce not to save Superman for reasons of its own; or a version of Superman who's everything Bruce had ever feared he might be, who came back to life fundamentally altered, who doesn't want to be returned to his nobler and better original self.

But Kent is standing here looking at him, _asking_ him. Ostensibly well aware of when Bruce has come here from, what he's done and what he plans to do. And still, still, willing to ask. Willing to believe that there's a chance the answer could be yes, and that if it is, it will be trustworthy in its turn. That Bruce won't falter, won't stumble—won't succumb to the demands of his own relentless desire to be in control.

That Bruce is capable of becoming the man Superman should have had at his shoulder, fighting Doomsday, and that Kent doesn't doubt it.

"All right," he says aloud. "All right."

His eyes are closed; he doesn't open them. Kent's hands remain, warm and steady, against his face—and then Kent's left lifts away, trails down Bruce's right arm with a gentle, skimming touch. Follows his forearm, his wrist, and dips into his pocket: closes around Bruce's, still clenched shut around the cube of mother box.

Another point in his favor, Bruce thinks dimly. If he's from the future, it stands to reason that he not only knew Bruce had tried this, had come here, but that he also knew how Bruce had done it.

"Thank you," Kent says to him softly, and then the world falls apart around them.

Bruce knows they've successfully returned to the Cave before he even opens his eyes to confirm. Something about the air, he thinks, the quiet hum and click of all his equipment, the smell of damp that comes of being beneath the lake.

But—Kent is still there.

He meets Bruce's eyes and smiles, in that warm knowing way that's so unutterably disorienting. "I thought it might help," he says easily, "if you had me on the interior cameras," as if it's no surprise that there are interior cameras, that he's aware of them and willing to be captured by them. "So you have footage to review—so you can be sure you weren't hallucinating, at the very least."

Bruce wets his lips, once and then again. "I appreciate it," he settles on, and lets his tone get just a little dry.

Kent's smile widens. "Sure thing," he says, deliberately exaggerated, painfully Midwestern.

One of his hands is still lingering against Bruce's jaw. It's—distracting.

"It'll work," Kent repeats, as if for the cameras' benefit. And then he pauses, and makes a face, corner of his mouth slanting down ruefully. "You're going to need the big guns," he adds. "And, uh, sorry for the thing with the police car. But it'll work. I promise." He clears his throat. "And now I guess I should get going, too."

He reaches for his wrist. A watch, to all appearances, is strapped there.

But when he touches the face of it with his fingers, there's a flicker of familiar blue-white lightning around its edges.

Barry, Bruce thinks. Because of course Barry could travel through time; Bruce himself would have been able to vouch for it personally. But even if the most efficient way to do it were the Speed Force—they must have known they'd need to send Kent, that he was the only member of the League whose presence in and of itself constituted any kind of proof that what he'd told Bruce was true.

They must have known Bruce would hear him out. They must have known Bruce wouldn't be able to turn away.

Kent looks up at him again, the watch flickering brighter, lightning beginning to snake up his wrist, his forearm. Lit like that, from beneath, so starkly, the blue of his eyes is downright unearthly, and the look on his face, intent, so full of _feeling_—

Bruce doesn't deserve that from Kent. Not yet. But it's tempting beyond words to think that someday he might: that the Bruce he is in the future Kent came from might have earned that look from Kent, and everything that comes with it.

(And maybe this is why he's going to allow it. Maybe this is why he's going to permit himself the indulgence of whatever it is he has with Kent, instead of keeping his distance like any sane man would. Having this experience, seeing Kent look at him like this, being confronted with the awareness that it's even possible that Kent might—

Maybe there's a closed loop here after all; maybe there's something that had to happen tonight to make the future Kent is living into reality, but it isn't the thing Bruce thought it was.)

"I'd say goodbye," Kent murmurs, "except I guess it's more like—see you tomorrow." And he smiles, lopsided and sweet; and then, in a flare of blue-white light, a flash and crackle and scattering of sparks, he's gone.

Bruce stands there and looks at the empty space he left behind him, and dares to let himself believe it won't stay empty for long.

He'll have to call Lane in the morning, he thinks, to confirm she's still willing to act if called upon. He looks down at the cube of mother box in his hand, gleaming, deceptively quiescent; and he steps over to the desk and settles it back into place.

There were a few more tests he'd wanted to run, a little more analysis to do. But he supposes there's no rush.

It'll work.


End file.
